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There, from the rising to the setting day,
Birds of bright feather sang the light away,
And fountain-waters on the palace-floor
Made even answer to the river's roar,
Rising in silver from the crystal well
And breaking into spangles as they fell,
Though now ye heard them not, for far along
Rang the broad chorus of the banquet-song,
And sounds as gentle, echoes soft, as these
Died out of hearing from the revelries.

High on a throne of ivory and gold,
From crown to footstool clad in purple fold,
Lord of the east from sea to distant sea,
The king Belshazzar feasteth royally,
And not that dreamer in the desert cave
Peopled his paradise with pomp as brave-
Vessels of silver, cups of crusted gold,
Blush with a brighter red than all they hold;
Pendulous lamps like planets of the night
Flung on the diadems a fragrant light,
Or, slowly swinging in the midnight sky,
Gilded the ripples as they glided by,
And sweet and sweeter rang the cittern-
string,

Soft as the beating of a seraph's wing,
And swift and swifter in the measured dance
The tresses gather and the sandals glance,
And bright and brighter at the festal board
The flagons bubble and the wines are poured.
No lack of goodly company was there,
No lack of laughing eyes to light the cheer;
From Dara trooped they, from Daremma's
grove,

The suns of battle and the moons of love;
From where Arsissa's silver waters sleep
To Imla's marshes and the inland deep;
From pleasant Calah and from Sittacene
The horseman's captain and the harem's

queen.

It seemed no summer-cloud of passing woe
Could fling its shadow on so fair a show;
It seemed the gallant forms that feasted there
Were all too grand for woe, too great for

care.

Whence came the anxious eye, the altered tone,

The dull presentiment no heart would own,
That ever changed the smiling to a sigh
Sudden as sea-bird flashing from the sky?
It is not that they know the spoiler waits,
Harnessed for battle, at the brazen gates;
It is not that they hear the watchman's call
Mark the slow minutes on the leaguered
wall:

The clash of quivers and the ring of spears
Make pleasant music in a soldier's ears,
And not a scabbard hideth sword to-night
That hath not glimmered in the front of
fight.

May not the blood in every beating vein Have quick foreknowledge of the coming pain,

Even as the prisoned silver,* dead and dumb, Shrinks at cold Winter's footfall ere he come?

The king hath felt it, and the heart's unrest
Heaved the broad purple of his belted breast.
Sudden he speaks: "What! doth the beaded
juice

Savor like hyssop, that ye scorn its use?
Wear ye so pitiful and sad a soul
That tramp of foeman scares ye from the
bowl?

Think ye the gods on yonder starry floor
Tremble for terror when the thunders roar?
Are we not gods? have we not fought with
God?

And shall we shiver at a robber's nod?

*The quicksilver in the tube of the thermometer.

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They watch the sign, and dare not turn to Comes in the music of a woman's word,

seek

Their fear reflected in their fellows' cheek,

Like beacon-bell on some wild island-shore Silverly ringing in the tempest's roar,

Whose sound, borne shipward through the There shall be guerdon for the grateful task midnight gloom, Fitted for me to give, for thee to askTells of the path and turns her from her A chain to deck thee, and a robe to grace, Thine the third throne, and thou the third in place."

doom.

So in the silence of that awful hour

When baffled magic mourned its 'parted He heard, and turned him where the lighted.

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When kings were pale and satraps shook for Dimmed the red torches of the festival,

fear,

A woman speaketh, and the wisest hear,
She, the high daughter of a thousand thrones,
Telling with trembling lip and timid tones
Of him the captive, in the feast forgot,
Who readeth visions-him whose wondrous
lot

Sends him to lighten doubt and lessen gloom
And gaze undazzled on the days to come.
Daniel the Hebrew, such his name and race,
Held by a monarch highest in his grace-
He may declare. Oh, bid them quickly send,
So
may the mystery have happy end.

Calmly and silent as the fair full moon
Comes sailing upward in the sky of June,
Fearfully as the troubled clouds of night
Shrink from before the coming of its light,
So through the hall the prophet passed along,
So from before him fell the festal throng;
By broken wassail-cup and wine o'erthrown
Pressed he still onward for the monarch's
throne.

His spirit failed him not; his quiet eye
Lost not its light for earthly majesty ;
His lip was steady and his accent clear:
"The king hath needed me, and I am here."

"Art thou the prophet? Read me yonder Read me yonder

scroll Whose undeciphered horror daunts my soul:

Gazed on the sign with steady gaze and set, And he who quailed not at a kingly threat Bent the true knee and bowed the silver hair,

For that he knew the King of kings was there,

Then nerved his soul the sentence to unfold, While his tongue trembled at the tale it told;

And never tongue shall echo tale as strange Till that change cometh which must never change:

'Keep for thyself the guerdon and the gold: What God hath graved, God's prophet must unfold.

Could not thy father's crime, thy father's fate,

Teach thee the terror thou hast learnt too late?

Hast thou not read the lesson of his life? Who wars with God shall strive a losing strife.

His was a kingdom mighty
mighty as thine own,
The sword his sceptre and the earth his
throne;

The nations trembled when his awful eye
Gave to them leave to live or doom to die;
The lord of life, the keeper of the grave,
His frown could wither, and his smile could

save;

Yet when his heart was hard, his spirit high,
God drave him from his kingly majesty,
Far from the brotherhood of fellow-men
To seek for dwelling in the desert den:
Where the wild asses feed and oxen roam
He sought his pasture and he made his
home,

And bitter-biting frost and dews of night Schooled him in sorrow till he knew the right

That God is Ruler of the rulers still,

And setteth up the sovereign that he will.
Oh, hadst thou treasured in repentant breast
His pride and fall, his penitence and rest,
And bowed submissive to Jehovah's will,
Then had thy sceptre been a sceptre still;
But thou hast mocked the majesty of Heaven
And shamed the vessels to its service given,
And thou hast fashioned idols of thine own-
Idols of gold, of silver and of stone;

To them hast bowed the knee and breathed the breath,

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And they must help thee in the hour of Seest thou afar yon solitary thorn

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Nor known to him the wretches were, nor I know thou wilt not slight my call,

dear:

He felt as man, and dropped a human tear.

Far other treatment she who breathless lay
Found from a viler animal of prey.

Worn with long toil on many a painful road,
That toil increased by nature's growing load,
When evening brought the friendly hour of

rest

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For thou dost mark the sparrow's fall;
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.

And such the trust that still were mine
Though stormy winds swept o'er the brine,
Or though the tempest's fiery breath
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.

In ocean's caves still safe with thee

And all the mother thronged about her The germ of immortality,

breast,

The ruffian officer opposed her stay,
And, cruel, bore her in her pangs away;
So far beyond the town's last limits drove
That to return were hopeless had she strove.
Abandoned there, with famine, pain and cold,

And anguish, she expired. The rest I've told.

"Now let me swear, for, by my soul's last sigh,

And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.

EMMA WILLARD.

HYMN ON THE SEASONS.

THESE, as they change, almighty Father,

these

Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing spring
That thief shall live, that overseer shall die." Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is

Too late! His life the generous robber
paid,

Lost by that pity which his steps delayed.
No soul-discerning Mansfield sat to hear,
No Hertford bore his prayer to Mercy's ear;
No liberal justice first assigned the gaol,
Or urged as Camplin would have urged his
tale.

DR. JOHN LANGHORNE.

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balm ;

Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the summer months.
With light and heat refulgent; then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling

year;

And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon or falling eve,
By brooks and groves in hollow-whispering
gales.

Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that
lives.

In winter awful thou, with clouds and

storms

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